Bart Ransomware spotted in the wild ( July 1, 2016)

The Dell SonicWall Threats Research team has received reports of a new Ransomware Trojan, Bart which encrypts the system files by not using any encryption methods such as AES as we have seen earlier, but by just converting them to a password protected zip archive.

Infection cycle:

The Trojan lands on the victim’s machine as adobe media encoder file.

The Trojan adds the following files to the filesystem:

• C:windowstemp(copy of original) [Detected as GAV: Bart.A (Trojan)]

The Trojan drops a batch file on the system:

• C:autoexec.bat

Usually, the ransomware trojan connects to C&C server before encrypting the files. But in this case, it does not connect to any CRC server but encrypts all the files on the victim’s machine with the extension bart.zip, a password protected zip archive.

The trojan creates the following file on the victim’s desktop and also in each folder on the victim’s machine:

• recover.txt

It displays the following file (recover.bmp) on the victim’s wall:

When visited the payment portal provided by the ransom note to decrypt the files, it demands the victim to pay 2 bitcoins. It also displays the information on how to purchase bitcoins.

We urge our users to always be vigilant and cautious with any unsolicited attachments specially if you are not certain of the source.

SonicWALL Gateway AntiVirus provides protection against this threat via the following signature:

• GAV: Bart.A (Trojan)

Security News

The SonicWall Capture Labs Threat Research Team gathers, analyzes and vets cross-vector threat information from the SonicWall Capture Threat network, consisting of global devices and resources, including more than 1 million security sensors in nearly 200 countries and territories. The research team identifies, analyzes, and mitigates critical vulnerabilities and malware daily through in-depth research, which drives protection for all SonicWall customers. In addition to safeguarding networks globally, the research team supports the larger threat intelligence community by releasing weekly deep technical analyses of the most critical threats to small businesses, providing critical knowledge that defenders need to protect their networks.